Customer Reviews

I decided to listen to this book because I saw it had an endorsement from Thom S. Rainer and Scot McKnight. With a title like The Gospel of Yes, I thought I'd get to enjoy a thoughtful look at how all the promises of God find their Yes in Christ, with a solid foundation on the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 1:18-20). Unfortunately this book is light on Scripture, light on the gospel, and heavy on Christianized self-actualization philosophy.

Glenn deals sparingly with Scripture, and when it does cite the Bible, he usually reinterprets the passage to be about his idea of finding our "Yes," which roughly ends up meaning being positive and hopeful about life's circumstances while pursuing our dreams. Some of us may need to hear that message, but this book won't get you there with the Bible. Likewise, most of the book is silent on what the gospel is. When the gospel is touched on, sin is not presented as an offense to a holy God, and salvation is more of a necessary step for finding your own "Yes."

Also, as I listened to this book in audio format, I was treated to the author's frequent mispronunciations, slightly loud breathing, and audible swallowing throughout. Reading to an audience is a skill, and I'm going to make sure the next book I listen to is read by a professional.

If you're looking for a book that touches on your life and purpose in the community of believers, try something like Crazy Love or Radical. Don't waste your time on this one.

I received this audio book from christianaudio for the purpose of review.

This book promises readers, or in this case, listeners that if they read the Bible, they will see all the "yes'" to Christ and to G-d, and then to themselves within its pages. All the promises of the Messiah say "yes" to Y'shua as Messiah - every prophecy and foretelling. Glenn insists that we need to step back and recognize that G-d is saying "yes" to us, and see what that "yes" means.

<em>We need to let our yes be yes and our no be no. If it is for G-d, then say yes. If it is not for G-d, then say no.</em> This was how Glenn initially viewed the Christian life. That, and suffering for Christ. But what if that's not what G-d intended? What if He had a different approach in mind? Glenn suggests that G-d creates us as a whole person with particular gifts and temperament. These gifts suit is for a particular pursuit in life. G-d creates us to use our gifts to worship Him, and enjoy our lives with the gifts He has given us.

We need to say no to the things that don't involve our gifts. Say yes to using our gifts, and no to neglecting them. By doing this, we will best apply ourselves in life. We will reduce frustration and burnout. We will be joyful. And that's what G-d wants from us. It's a simple concept, really. We don't need to suffer because we are Christian. There will be times of pain, for sure, but we have a Messiah to fall back on. So, if we find joy in it and are skilled in it, we should do it joyfully and worship G-d by doing what He created us to do. If we are miserable with the activity and have no skill or gifting in the area, we should abandon the task. Words like these could radically change the church.

Glenn speaks in a typical preacher-style voice from Texas: gruff with a drawl. Luckily, his drawl is minor, which allows listeners to actually comprehend what he's saying. The audio echoed a bit, as if it were recorded as a podcast. Otherwise, Glenn speaks authoritatively and clearly. With a medium to fast pace, he isn't overbearing in his narration, but surprisingly graceful in the art. The audio is worthy of five stars, more accurately four and a half.

Following Y'shua is a lot more than being careful not to do wrong. Don't define your life by what you oppose, but rather by what you support. Following Y'shua is doing right, and doing it well, within the giftings and joy G-d has given us.

This review was commissioned by christian audio. Read this review, and others like it, at scriptedgenius.com.

Weaving the stories of how his life took a dramatic turn after learning this concept and how others live it out, author Mike Glenn walks us through the idea that God is a God of yes. What exactly does this mean? It's an entire paradigm shift away from the belief that the Christian life is a miserable one, and that God is a tyrant who oppresses us to keep us in line.

Instead, the author outlines ways that God uses our natural gifts, talents, and personality types--which, consequently, He planned and designed--to lead us into an abundant life. As we live this out, we are functioning in the kingdom as we were meant to, not only benefitting God's work on earth, but fulfilling us as individuals.

Although the book is broken into chapters, each chapter has bite-sized chunks that could easily serve as a daily devotion, and since it's an audiobook, it makes for great listening as you commute. The author, who read the book, has an engaging, pleasant, Southern voice, minus that fake accent that drives us real Southerners crazy.

If you were raised in church as I was, it may take you a while to digest this whole book. Each chapter has concepts that challenged me to think about what I'd been taught, in light of what the Bible says about God and what I've found to be true about Him. I found things I didn't agree with, things I wasn't sure about, and things that caused a light to click on. I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to a new Christian, but ones who've been in this thing for a while will certainly find some food for thought.

I received this book free from the publisher through christianaudio in exchange for an honest review.

I only really liked this towards the end of the audio as it wasn't what I thought it would be. I thought I would be listening to a book about grace rather than a trip through the bible.The author Mike Glenn does a fine job of narrating this audio and does very well explaining the gospel, but personally I found it made my mind wander as I heard all the usual bible stories being told to me again. I enjoyed the last few chapters as it became more practical. I did enjoy hearing the stories he recounted of others faith journeys as these were very encouraging. I also enjoyed one of the last chapters about simplicity which I think is probably the most practical. I think it would be good for young Christians who have got stuck in their new faith journey and for those who feel the need to get out of religious obligations, as I'm sure it would be a breath of fresh air to them. Thanks to christianaudio.com Reviewer's Program for this copy

Mike Glenn's book, “The Gospel of Yes” comes with the subtitle “We Have Missed the Most Important Thing About God. Finding It Changes Everything”. Could it be true? Could this really be the most important book written since the close of the canon – a great break-through which will make the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3) suddenly insufficient? (For the chance to be amongst the first to read this “thing that changes everything”, I must thank the christianaudio reviewers programme for providing me a review copy in audio format – read by the author himself!)

In structure, the book starts off with an account of the author's own crisis as a pastor, leading to what he describes as a theophany in which Almighty God delivers him two verbal messages of direction. These two messages lead the author into a discussion that spans the remainder of the book. The words are simply: “Why don't you let the church relax and be who I made her to be?” (Glenn 1:71) and "Why don't you relax and be who I made you to be?" (Glenn 1:72).

Figuring out just what this central 'thing' is is sadly difficult, as despite aiming at delivering the single most important thing about God for generations, there's a lack of a clear statement along the lines of “the gospel of yes is that X”. My best attempt at distilling the book as a whole leads me to a definition of this “gospel of yes” being “we should say yes to what God has designed for us, because he's designed us to do it”. This is expressed in various ways, but generally boils down to that. An example of how this works is found early on in the book; the author realises he is impatient when it comes to administrative works, diagnoses the problem as God not having designed him for administrative work, and thus withdraws himself from these tasks as they are contrary to the yes that God has planned for him.

The writing is interspersed with various other theological concepts, including a strong emphasis on (at least a functional) postmillenial reconstructionism, and an idea of each individual having a specific “destiny” or “destiny moment” to which he will arrive by following the gospel of yes. There are colourful moments, such as accounts of sports stars achieving great things, and anecdotes from the life and ministry of the author.

Overall, the biggest fault of the book is that it fails to back up the points it is making with Scripture. Scripture is cited, but very often out of context, or freely “reinterpreted” in a way which is entirely novel. If this book were devotional material it may be more acceptable, but not if it's the gospel of yes - the Most Important Thing About God. Further, I get the distinct impression that the guiding force behind the argument made is not Scripture but a combination of the author and his reported theophany.

Speaking of the Scriptures, they are very very clear about one thing: and that is that there is only one gospel. The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 1:8 “even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed”, and the same import is found in many other places concerning holding to sound doctrine. Bearing this in mind, I cannot recommend any work which expresses another gospel – and even more so when it fails to derive that gospel necessarily and logically from Scripture. Don't buy this book. Theology is not a game, nor is it a creative art, it's a matter of life and death (1 Timothy 4:16). Stick to the real gospel, the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16): the good news that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-5).

God wants us to experience joy in our life, but many Christians feel that to be in God's will we must be miserable. But God wants us to use the gifts He has given us and to enjoy them in the work He has given us to do. When we try to be want we were not created to be we not only make ourselves miserable we make those around us miserable as well.

Serving God and others in the way we were created brings natural joy to both our outer demeanor and to our soul. Following God is not following a list of do not do's, this limits us so that we become angry and bitter. Rather we are to follow the path Jesus first walked, we are not to pound people into submission but rather win people over with good. We must immerse ourselves in the Word and experience the depth of Jesus' teachings.

When we truly know know Christ we will have integrity of character; our yes will always be yes and our no will always be no. No matter how circumstances change we will live in the same manner because we are grounded in Christ.

Today far too many Christians cannot say what they are for but they can list in detail what they oppose. But when we look at Paul he did not do this. He brought a message of hope, he did not stand on a corner waging war against the world of his day. Knowing Christ was all that mattered everything else was disposable, we should share the Good News in a like manner.

When we focus our vision on Christ our life is grounded and He is a positive driving force in our life. When Christ is the yes of our life we will not get trapped by the options life throws in our path. We must know what we are for. We must make a commitment, we can't chose the middle ground in case something better may come along.

We must live our day-to-day moments as a an act of worship before God. Through our relationship with God, we reclaim a portion of the universe that has been lost to sin. Everything we do should be as if we were doing it unto Jesus.

When God created the world He gave one no to His creation. But when limits are placed on us we assume that God is trying to keep us from having fun. But the rules (or Commandments) that God gave us are gifts of grace and mercy. Jesus gave us two rules for living to love God and to love our neighbor, if we keep these two rules we can easily keep every other rule given to us by God. By focusing on these two positives we do not focus on the negatives – the I can't do this of sin. If we focus on what we cannot do we will fail and we will sin.

But we must remember Jesus came in love to this sinful world. He came not to condemn but to save because He loved us. Creation is the outpouring of God's love and joy and He wants us to experience this same love and joy. The Bible is the story of God's yes, His love and His joy. By saying yes to the pain and suffering of the cross Jesus gave us the opportunity to save yes to His salvation, to accept His gift of redemption.

We need to realize that no one can meet our needs, only Christ can do this. We just have to say yes to His yes. God's final yes will be when He remakes and restores His creation.

Will you say Yes today? God is waiting for your answer.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.